our team

Chief editor

  • BA(Hons), MA ATh, PhD, AThR

    Sheridan is Associate Professor of Art Therapy in the School of Social Sciences at Western Sydney University, where she teaches in the Master of Art Therapy program. She is interested in arts-informed, narrative and new-materialist approaches with the potential to decolonise teaching, research and clinical practice. She works with others to question and reshape professional and therapeutic discourse, counter marginalisation and move beyond individualistic accounts of well-being. Sheridan has more than 30 years of field experience working therapeutically with the effects of violence, abuse and neglect on individuals and families, supervising and training other therapists and formulating new approaches to this area of work. She trained in psychodrama as well as narrative therapy and art therapy, is a practising poet, and occasionally participates in collaborative art exhibitions and performances.

Co-editors

  • PhD, GradDipPsychAdv, BPsychSc, AThR

    Henry is the Research and Training Lead at Military and Emergency Services Health Australia, a charity of the Hospital Research Foundation Group. They specialise in understanding the mechanisms of how military and first responder culture and identity impact wellbeing, and the practical implementation of preventative and interventional care. Their PhD was focused on exploring the foundations of robust research practice for art therapy in Australia focusing on trauma-focused art therapy for defense and emergency services personnel with post-traumatic stress. In their current role they work towards communicating the value of creative health interventions for military and first responders for well-being and are passionate about building the awareness and quality of care provided by creative health practitioners. They were recently commissioned by ANZACATA to create and set professional standards and core competencies for masters level creative health graduates across Australia, New Zealand and the Asia-Pacific.

  • GradCertATh, AdvDipTransATh, MAppSc(Social Ecology), PhD, AThR

    Catherine is a nationally awarded arts-based experiential educator. An art therapist in private practice, she works with adults and children, and facilitates art therapy groups for Cancer Wellness Support. Catherine has over 35 years’ professional experience in creative education – as a Lecturer in the Master of Art Therapy at Western Sydney University (WSU), and as Senior Lecturer in Social Ecology in the School of Education at WSU. Her areas are arts-based research and pedagogy with a focus on voice/silence, and education as social justice. Catherine’s sole-authored popular press book from her art-based performative PhD shares the stories of women growing up in families with a mother who has a mental illness. She co-authored the first social ecology text in Australia, is published in scholarly books and journals, as well as in poetry and narrative anthologies, and has exhibited her mixed-media artworks in solo and community exhibitions.

  • BA(Hons)(Drama), MEd, PGDip(Adult Ed), MAAT(Clin), PhD, AThR

    Based in Ōtautahi Christchurch, Deborah is Head of School at Whitecliffe’s School of Creative Arts Therapies. Following a career in the South African university and health sectors, she moved to Aotearoa New Zealand, gained her Master of Arts in Arts Therapy (Whitecliffe) and spent several years working with those affected by the Canterbury earthquakes (2010–11). She received her PhD from the University of Auckland for an autoethnographic arts-based thesis exploring this experience. She has published in books and journals, and presented at conferences in Aotearoa New Zealand, Australia, Singapore, Canada and the UK.

  • MAppSc, MArtTH, BFA, AThR

    Caryn Griffin is a lecturer in the Master of Art Therapy program at La Trobe University, Melbourne. Caryn has worked as an art therapist for a range of community organisations that support the mental health of children, adolescents, adults, and families. When she is not teaching at LTU, Caryn works at a non-for-profit cancer support network that promotes coping and self-expression of children and teenagers living with cancer. In addition to her clinical work, Caryn has conducted art therapy research during a Master of Applied Science degree that investigated the use of art therapy to support the ongoing recovery of adults with eating disorders at the Royal Melbourne Hospital. Caryn has coordinated the art therapy short courses at La Trobe University since 2017. Caryn has published articles in the Arts in Psychotherapy and Journal of Applied Arts & Health, and has spoken at conferences nationally and internationally about her art therapy research and practice.

  • PhD (Dean’s list), MAAT(Clin), MDes

    Ying is currently working as a Research Fellow in the Centre for Arts and Social Transformation at The University of Auckland in Aotearoa New Zealand. She is focusing on arts-based research about well-being and leading Asian immigrant mental health projects. Ying started her career in design but turned to creative arts therapy in 2015, graduating with a Master of Arts Therapy (Clinical) in 2017. She completed her PhD from the University of Auckland in 2021. Ying is passionate about research from a critical/decolonial perspective employing mixed-method approaches. Her previous research has focused on using culture in therapy and identity studies, utilising arts-based methods to explore these topics. As an immigrant arts therapist with English as a second language, Ying brings a deep understanding and sensitivity regarding the importance of cultural considerations in therapy and research. Ying has several journal articles, book chapters and a book published.

  • MA, MA ArtAdmin, BFA, AThR

    Daniel is an art therapist and researches the intersection between the arts, health and well-being. He has worked in Australia, Thailand and Singapore with diverse populations for over 18 years. His interests span from object-making and material engagements to embodied creative practices, relational dynamics and their applications in grief, traumatic stress and post-traumatic growth. A trained artist, he works primarily with fabric, yarns and found discarded or other ephemera. The attraction lies in their aesthetic, sensory and ideational appeal and the unfinished unpredictability of things as they are circulated, reimagined and refashioned into assemblages, collages or bricolages. Daniel is a committee member of the Art Therapy Foundation Thailand and teaches in the MA Art Therapy programme at LASALLE College of The Arts in Singapore. In 2021, his first co-edited book, Found Objects in Art Therapy: Materials and Process with Ronald Lay, was published by Jessica Kingsley (UK).

Coordinator and designer

  • BA, MA, MFA

    Based in Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland, Vic is an experienced graphic designer running a design company – Dragonfly Design. They managed ANZATA’s, then ANZACATA’s, communications from 2008 to 2019, and have coordinated and designed JoCAT and ANZJAT since 2008. They are well versed in academic writing and referencing, and like to write about art. They work with a number of artists, galleries and arts organisations, as well as cycling advocacy groups and creative arts therapies practitioners. They are an artist and completed an MFA with first-class honours from Whitecliffe. Vic also works part time as a bike mechanic at a local community bike hub.

Copyeditors and proofreaders

  • BA(Hons)

    Based in Sydney, Anne has a first-class honours degree in English literature from the University of New South Wales. She has over 30 years’ experience in university administration, competitive grant application writing, editing and proofreading.

  • BFA

    Marie is a Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland-based artist who has been creating delicately intimate and thoughtful works for over 30 years. She has exhibited widely to critical acclaim since representing New Zealand at Australia’s Asia-Pacific Triennale in 1996. Marie's  work is held in public and private collections in Aotearoa New Zealand and Australia. As well as copy-editing for JoCAT, Marie has experience as an editorial assistant at Art News New Zealand and editor at Unitec’s ePress. She lectures in photography.